4 Things You Need to Look Out For When Collaborating With Influencers For Your Rental Property
There’s more to the story than large follower counts.
What I like about airbnb is that you really don’t have to put much effort into marketing your listing. In the old days people used to create websites to promote their vacation rental and will have to bear the associated headaches that comes with it. This would usually include creating a search engine marketing strategy and advertising it on magazines etc. But Airbnb has now highly simplified that process by being a one-stop shop for accommodations and experiences.
However, this does not mean that the “traditional” methods are outdated, meaning that marketing through other avenues can still boost your bookings significantly. A large percentage of your potential client base might not use airbnb to find their vacation rentals so it’s always good to diversify your marketing efforts. More importantly however, places are now utilizing social media to promote their spaces and are having huge successes with it! If you are a host, chances are you have received a message from a social media influencer at one point, who offered to promote your place in exchange for a free stay. Most of the time this person will probably have at least a few thousand followers across multiple platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and/or Tik Tok. A lot of hosts, especially those on the Gen X side (no offence, I’m just using my parents and their knowledge of social media as a reference point 🤷) might not be super proficient in the industry of social media influencers. Therefore, all these numbers that this person might throw at you can seem overwhelming and too good to be true. “What? You mean to tell me that if you promote my place on your social media accounts, 100’s of thousands of people will see it? Sign me up!” If this sounds too good to be true then it’s most likely exactly that. Having worked with a number of social media influencers in the past, I’ve learned a few things which I’ll outline below.
1) Assess their relevance to your brand
Here it is important that the content that the influencer is posting, highly coincides with the ethos and vibe of your place. This would mean that the photos that are being posted of your place, perfectly integrates with the grain of content that the influencer posts, both in regards to the environment as well as the genre. For example, if an influencer who mostly focuses on budget accommodations and you happen to cater more towards the premium accommodation market, chances are your brand does not overlap with theirs. The same goes for other factors such as climate (tropical vs winter holidays), age, type of travel (adventurous, luxury, budget, etc.). It’s imperative that you do a deep dive into the person who is requesting a partnership from you so that you don’t give away a free stay, without getting anything in return that can be of value to you as well. Ask them to share all their follower stats with you (a detailed breakdown of the age and geographical location is usually a good start). As a small tip on age: Ideally you’d want their followers to be an even breakdown between Millennials and Gen X’s as they are likely to have disposable income to spend on vacation rentals.
2) Work with influencers who are based in the same country/region as you
For example, if the influencer mostly travels through Asia and promotes places in only one region or area and now happens to expand to your region (let’s say East Africa), chances are that your place it might not be super relevant to their community. Firstly, their followers might mostly be located in Asia and the likelihood of them traveling to EA, and specifically to your place, is extremely low. Therefore, if you are considering to work with an influencer, make sure that they are based on the same region/country as you, since chances are, their followers will be based in the same region as well or have an interest in traveling to said region. As a result, your place will now be more accessible to a larger number of their follower base and therefore increases the likelihood that some of these followers will convert into paying guests. As an example, partnering with a travel influencer who visits about 30 countries in 1 year will not be wise as they will have an audience that is spread across the globe. Sure, you might pick up a few followers on your instagram account, but don’t expect these to convert into real bookings.
3) Focus on quality not quantity
This is an important one as well and ties very well together with my first point on relevance. Let’s say an influencer approaches you with 100k followers and an engagement rate of about 2% (the engagement rate being the percentage of their total follower base who interacts with the content that they post). 2% is not great, so chances are that out of those 100k, only 2000 are actually active followers. On the other hand, if an influencer has about 15k but an engagement rate of 25%, which is really good, this would mean that a relatively large percentage of their followers are highly engaged. This is also an indicator of the legitimacy of the brand as the winning formula on social media is to grow your engagement rate while growing your follower base. Nowadays it’s quite easy to gain a lot of followers really quick but growing the engagement rate is where the real value lies. This is also the main way to tell if someone’s brand has actual depth.
4) Make sure they are genuinely passionate about their craft
This one is a slightly harder to figure out as this has to do more about the general feeling you get when looking at the content of this particular influencer. You’d want to partner with someone who is genuine about their work and who would also do it if it would mean not getting paid. If you are discussing terms with an influencer for a potential partnership, take note on how they react when talking about money and about the terms of your partnership. Remember, you are the person with the product that they’re interested in. If you offer something unique, they approached you because they want to create interesting content for their audience. Be realistic about what you can offer them and what they can offer you and perhaps do a little ROI calculation with the value you provide to them and the potential value they provide to you in return. Shopify has created a detailed guide on this which I would recommend to check out.
If you notice that he/she/they are asking for outrageous terms that results with you losing money, are very cocky and arrogant about their “brand” and overpromise quite a lot, I would 100% reject this partnership. The truth about influencer marketing is that there is never a guarantee to get your investment back, and an influencer who is genuine would also point this out to you. This is why you also have to do your own research and assess the likelihood of their brand being compatible to yours.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing has been growing in popularity over the past 5 years as it does have its merits, but I believe that it’s effectiveness is declining simply because there might already be too influencers many out there. It does not have the novel effect as it once had and with the number of influencers steadily growing, it is harder for them to retain the attention of their followers. This does not mean that it is now completely ineffective. The effectiveness of it highly depends on your brand and what kind of product you have. Beyond looking at the stats I would have a genuine conversation with the influencer to see if our philosophies align. If you get a good feeling about the person and feel as though they are being truthful and realistic with what they can offer you, and are passionate about your product, then I would give it a try but be sure to not get fooled by large numbers and promises that sound too good to be true.
